The Eleventh Hour
You are in the eleventh hour of a 12-hour day, finishing the last of six flights for a real-estate client at a non-controlled aerodrome with a CTAF of 126.7. The aerodrome operator has given permission to work from the eastern grass, 250 m from the runway centreline, at 30 m AGL. A Cessna has been in the circuit for 30 minutes; the last transmission you clearly heard was 'downwind, touch and go'. Wind is 18 kt gusting 28, raising dust along the strip, and last light is 15 minutes away. Your handheld radio is in its case in the car, 200 m away. The client wants one more orbit of the property. You have a headache, have not eaten since 0700, and misheard a call five minutes ago without asking for a repeat.
1. What radio call would you make, and what does that call actually achieve - and not achieve?
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A suitable broadcast on 126.7 would name the aerodrome, identify the aircraft type as remotely piloted, give position relative to a known feature, height, intentions, and repeat the aerodrome:
'(Aerodrome) traffic, remotely piloted aircraft, small multirotor, operating from the eastern grass 250 m east of the runway centreline, 100 ft above ground, will remain east of the runway and clear of the circuit, (aerodrome) traffic.'
Give the height in feet as well as metres - circuit traffic thinks in feet - and give it as height above ground so a pilot can place you below their circuit height.
What it achieves: it alerts circuit traffic that something unusual is happening on the eastern side, which is genuinely useful at a non-controlled aerodrome where nobody expects a drone.
What it does not achieve:
- It is not separation. No pilot is obligated to keep clear of you; you keep clear of them.
- A pilot looking into low sun, dust and a 28 kt gust is very unlikely to see a small aircraft against the grass. Broadcasts do not compensate for see-and-avoid failure.
- It does nothing at all if you are not monitoring. With the radio in the car 200 m away, you cannot hear the Cessna call downwind, base or final, so you cannot know where it is. Broadcasting while deaf to replies is worse than useless - it creates a false sense of deconfliction.
2. List the specific hazards in this situation and state what a competent remote pilot does next. Be concrete about the human factors, not just the weather.
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The hazards stack up, and each one raises the risk of the others:
- Fatigue. Eleven hours on task, six flights, headache, no food since 0700. Attention, scan discipline and radio comprehension all degrade first and are the last things you notice degrading.
- Plan-continuation and goal seduction. The client wants 'one more orbit', the day is nearly done, and the aircraft is already out. The pressure to finish is generated by the schedule, not by any operational need.
- Complacency from repetition. Five uneventful flights make the sixth feel routine, which is precisely when the missed radio call passes unnoticed.
- A missed call already ignored. You misheard a transmission and did not ask for a repeat. That is the single clearest signal in the whole scenario that your monitoring has failed.
- Degraded see-and-avoid. Low sun, 15 minutes to last light, dust from 28 kt gusts, and a small aircraft against a busy background.
- Wind at the edge of handling. 18 gusting 28 kt at 30 m AGL near buildings is sporty for a small multirotor and increases the chance of a loss of control close to the runway.
- Radio in the car. You are operating at an active aerodrome without the ability to monitor the CTAF.
What a competent pilot does: stops. Not 'does one more and then stops' - stops, packs up, and tells the client the flight is not going ahead because the pilot is fatigued, light is going, wind is gusting, and the aircraft cannot be deconflicted from circuit traffic. Then logs the day, includes the near-miss of the missed call, and reschedules for the morning.
The professional framing to the client is a schedule statement, not an apology: 'the conditions for the last shot are outside what I'll fly - we'll do it at 0700 tomorrow.'
3. Suppose the Cessna lands and taxis in, a colleague arrives with a second radio, and the wind drops to 10 kt. Would you then fly the last orbit? Justify your answer.
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Removing three hazards does not remove the one that governs the decision.
The radio, the traffic and the wind were real problems and they are now genuinely gone - that is not nothing. With a second pilot on the radio, the Cessna on the ground and moderate wind, the external risk picture is closer to acceptable.
But the controlling hazard is pilot state: eleven hours, six flights, no food since 0700, a headache, and a demonstrated failure of radio monitoring five minutes ago. Fatigue is not reversed by a colleague arriving or the wind easing, and the last flight of a long day into failing light is a well-recognised point for errors in this activity. The residual question is not 'is it safe out there now?' but 'am I still the right person to be flying it in the next fifteen minutes?'
There is also a subtler factor: the arrival of a second radio and the landing Cessna convert the situation from 'obviously no' to 'arguably yes', and that shift itself is a warning. Decisions that flip because the pressure to finish has been lightly relieved, rather than because the risk has changed, are the ones that end up in reports.
The right answer is to bank the improvement rather than spend it - pack up, and use the morning for the last orbit with a rested pilot, daylight and a proper pre-flight. If the imagery genuinely cannot wait, hand the aircraft to a rested pilot who has not been on task for eleven hours, and let them make their own go/no-go call.